


Father's Day

by Fríálfurinn (DangerousCommieSubversive)



Series: This Just Keeps Happening [2]
Category: LazyTown
Genre: Children, Cross-Generational Friendship, Developing Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, small purple automaton daughters, this man is on the brink of losing his villain credentials, villains continuing to feel things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-23
Updated: 2017-01-23
Packaged: 2018-09-19 09:46:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9433997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DangerousCommieSubversive/pseuds/Fr%C3%AD%C3%A1lfurinn
Summary: Try as he might, Robbie Rotten hasn't stopped having nice feelings about people. It's gotten to the point where he's having them so often that they're not even leaving room for him to be angry about it, and it'sreallyaffecting his villainy, because if he doesn't hate Sportacus then what's he supposed to do with all these machines?Anyway, Sportacus keeps kissing him and Stingy keeps coming to his house and he's happy all the time now, and if the International Villains Authority (or, gods forbid, his grandfather) find out hownicehe's gotten, they'll tear up his villain license in front of him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Help it got cuter.

The kids were in the middle of a _perfectly ordinary_ sewing lesson, and Robbie was leaning over Ziggy’s shoulder helping him fix his thread tension when Trixie suddenly said, “So are you and Sportacus going out now or what?”

Stephanie clapped her hands over her mouth. Stingy looked up from his work, eyes wide. Pixel made sort of a startled squawking noise. Ziggy _gasped._ And Robbie jumped violently and nearly got a machine needle through his hand for his trouble. “Are we— _what?_ Why? Who wants to know? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Trixie just kept sewing like it was nothing, her hands guiding jersey cotton through the machine with a confidence that Robbie was hideously pleased to know she’d developed. “My mother wants to know.”

“Why on _earth_ would your mother want to know whether or not Sportadoof and I are… _going_ _out?_ ” A terrible thought occurred to him. “ _She_ doesn’t want to ask him out, does she?”

She looked genuinely horrified by the suggestion. “ _God,_ no. She wants to ask _you_ out. _Please_ actually be going out with Sportacus, I refuse to let you date my mom.”

Feeling simultaneously relieved and indignant was rather confusing. “And why _not?_ ”

“Because that would be _weird._ ”

Stephanie let out a choked giggle, and Robbie turned his glare on _her_ for a moment before returning it to Trixie. “Believe me, you dreadful hooligan, it would be just as strange for me.”

“Glad we agree on that.” She clipped the thread, held up the tunic she was making, and squinted at it. “Anyway. You and Sportacus. Dating. Are you?”

He huffed. “What Sportacus and I may or may not be doing is none of your business, but you can tell your mother that I'm not available.”

“Have you seen him naked yet? I bet it’s pretty impressive.”

Scandalized, Stingy said, “Trixie, oh my _god._ ” Stephanie’s giggles were getting louder.

Robbie had not, in fact, seen Sportacus naked. Or even shirtless. But Trixie didn’t need to _know_ that. “I’m going to sew your clothes into a bag and use it to hang you from the nearest flagpole. If Sportacus asks I’ll just tell him you needed to be protected from bears.”

“You say that, but you’ll have to catch me first, and I run faster than you.”

“ _Bears,_ Trixie.”

“Sure, Robbie.”

He had never been so happy to hear the school bell ring.

 

* * *

 

Stingy hung back after the others had left, school bag on his hip, standing by patiently as Robbie packed up the sample pieces from that day’s class. Robbie remembered vaguely that he’d been a loud, bossy, self-possessed little boy. The self-possession remained, but the rest had transformed—he was more secretive than he was greedy, more uptight than bossy, and only occasionally prone to loud outbursts. In the last home ec class he’d made himself a bracelet out of a plastic zipper, and he opened and closed it as he waited, making a sound like a _very_ distant motor.

As soon as everything had been packed, though, he said, “Robbie?”

“Yes, what is it?” Robbie picked up his things and headed out of the classroom, Stingy trailing along behind him. “Shouldn’t you be playing with your friends?”

“Actually, I wanted to ask if I could come to your house to study, I have homework to do and they’re all _very_ loud.”

Six months ago Robbie would have said no.

Granted, six months ago he would have found the idea of him leaving the Lazy Town schoolhouse having _taught a class_ entirely unthinkable.

“Don’t they have the same homework to do? Sure, fine, if you want to.”

They climbed down into Robbie’s house one by one, and Stingy perched on a tall chair at one of the work tables and spread out his homework papers while Robbie tinkered with a new machine. He’d had the vague idea, originally, that he’d be able to use it to turn Sportacus into a rabbit or some other small fluffy animal—but that had been two months ago, things had happened since then, and the idea was seeming less appealing. He didn’t want to scrap the machine, it was good work, but he was no longer clear on what he’d _do_ with it.

“Robbie?”

“What?”

“I don’t understand this paragraph, would you take a look at it?”

“I can give it a shot.”

“Thank you.”

He leaned over Stingy’s shoulder and squinted down at the book, scowling. The page swam in front of his face. “Kid, I can’t read this, the print is tiny.”

Stingy frowned. “Really?”

“Yeah, look, I’m not a big reader. Gives me a headache.”

“Oh.” A pause. “If I read it out loud would that help?”

“Sure, that might work.” Robbie rubbed at his temple. “But I need an Advil first.”

The section Stingy had been stuck on turned out to involve photosynthesis, which Robbie had never been too clear on himself. The mere act of reading aloud seemed to help Stingy get the hang of it, though, which meant that Robbie could go back to his tinkering. Or rather, he _tried_ to back to his work, but the Advil hadn’t properly taken hold, so he ended up in his chair, eyes shut, waiting for the headache to go away.

 

* * *

 

He must have drifted off to sleep, because he woke abruptly at the jingle of metal. “What in the world…?” After a quick glance at the clock, “Kid, what are you still doing here? You must have finished your homework ages ago.”

“I’m organizing things.” Stingy’s papers were all packed away, and in their place on the work table was a length of black velvet which he must have unearthed from Robbie’s chaos of random materials.

_“Why?”_

“Because I _like_ organizing things, and you’re always complaining about not being able to find what you’re looking for.”

“Oh.” Robbie blinked. “Well…thank you?”

“You’re very welcome.”

Stingy had also managed to find a large compartmentalized tray, which Robbie vaguely remembered buying in a fit of frustration and then never actually using, and a small stack of pale purple labels. The black velvet was covered in piles of gears and cams and springs and keys, carefully sorted by size and type. At Stingy’s elbow was a box of assorted clockwork parts, which he was picking through carefully with gloved hands. Each piece got added to one of the existing piles, or set down separately to begin a new one.

Grumbling in order to at least maintain the _appearance_ of irritation, Robbie got up, grabbed another tall chair, and pulled it over to the other side of the work table. “You don’t need to sort all the keys by design, kid, just size. The design doesn’t make a difference.”

“It makes a difference to _me,_ the curlicues on those two don’t _match._ They should _match_ if they’re going to go into the same compartment.” Stingy’s voice took on a shrill, anxious edge for a moment. “Shouldn’t you have _fewer_ keys than everything else? I don’t know how I’m going to find spaces for all of them.”

“They accumulate. I’ve probably got another one of those trays around somewhere you can use for just the keys. Where did you _find_ all this stuff?”

“The fact that you’re _asking_ that is proof that I need to do this. This thing was only half-full when I found it, everything else was in little piles everywhere. I don’t know how you stand it.”

“It’s how I’ve always done things.”

“Well, it’s _messy._ ” Stingy’s shoulders hunched. “I don’t like messes. What if there’s an emergency?”

“Hey, kid, calm down, it’s ok. You’re, uh, you’re doing a good job, I appreciate it. Also, remind me never to let you see my parents’ house.”

Stingy’s shoulders relaxed visibly. “Is it messier than yours?”

“God yes, and only half of it is mess like mine, my father leaves tools and parts all over the place. My _mother’s_ just as messy, but her messes are all gems and jewelry and furs and designer hats. Any given one is worth at least five thousand dollars.” Robbie picked a gear out of the box, squinted at it, and then added it to one of the piles on the velvet.

 _Now_ Stingy was smiling. “I think I’d _like_ to see something like that. Don’t you want gloves? You’re going to get _grease_ all over your hands.”

“Kid, if a little grease bothered me then I’d hardly have been wearing my hair like this for the past fifteen years.”

“I suppose that’s true.”

They worked in silence for a while, which was delightful—if there was one thing Robbie appreciated about this kid deciding they were friends, it was that he knew how to be quiet occasionally. Organizing mainsprings and worm gears wasn’t especially exciting, but clearly Stingy was enjoying it, and Robbie was surprised to realize how happy that made him. The kid was absurdly anxious most of the time, seeing him relax and cheer up was satisfying.

Stingy said, quietly, not looking up, “So _are_ you and Sportacus going out?”

Robbie considered it briefly and then just said, “I think so.”

“Was that why you were so angry with my dad when we had that fight? Because you’re going out with Sportacus?”

“No, we weren’t going out then. I was angry at him because it was a stupid thing for him to fight with you about, it’s not as if you’re going around getting arrested or doing drugs or breaking people’s knees or anything. Whether or not you want to ask Pixel to go to dances with you isn’t something to yell about.”

“Dr. Packet’s going to drive us to Greedy Town next week so we can see a movie together.”

“Good.”

Another fifteen minutes of silence. They finished sorting out the whole box of parts onto the velvet, and Stingy produced a fountain pen and pulled over the stack of blank labels. And then paused. “Is there a way I can label these that’ll make them easier for you to read?”

“Uh…just don’t write ‘em in cursive, I hate that stuff. I know most of this by sight anyway.”

“Ok.” Stingy looked at his pen, shook his head, and pulled out a _different_ fountain pen. “I can’t write these in green ink, that would look terrible.”

“Style’s very important.”

_“Exactly.”_

The new fountain pen was black—not quite within Robbie’s normal color scheme, but it looked good on the purple paper, and Stingy’s handwriting was clean and clear. Robbie pulled the tray over and started moving the little sorted piles into its compartments.

“Robbie?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you dyslexic?”

“Kid, I don’t know what that means.”

“Stephanie always gets extra time on tests and I was really mad when I found out because that’s not fair but she said it’s because she has trouble reading and so it takes longer for her to do all the questions. One time the history teacher from Bully Town made fun of her for it because he said she just wasn’t trying hard enough and now we have the history teacher who comes from Mayhem Town instead.” Stingy paused in his label-making for a moment to stare contemplatively into space. “I think it’s the only time I’ve seen Mayor Meanswell get really _mad_ about something.”

“Huh.” Robbie frowned down at the tray. “Well, maybe, I don’t know.”

Another fifteen minutes of quiet. Stingy finished making the labels and began attaching them, fussing about getting every edge _precisely_ lined up while Robbie held the tray steady.

As he smoothed the last label on, Stingy said, “Robbie? Can I ask you something else?”

“Man, kid, you are _full_ of questions today.” Robbie snapped the lid onto the tray. “Sure, what is it?”

“Whatever happened to Rottenella?”

Huh. Robbie hadn’t thought about the little automaton in years. For some reason the memory of her evil little smile made his heart hurt. “Her clockwork ran down and I didn’t have time to fix it. She’s probably around here somewhere, I think I put her in one of the storage closets. Why?”

“I don’t know, I just always thought she was cool.”

That took Robbie so much by surprise that he hadn’t quite collected himself enough to answer when he heard a brief knocking, followed by the _whoosh_ of Sportacus dropping into the house. “Robbie, have you seen—ah, yes, Stingy! You _are_ here! Your parents are looking for you, it’s almost dinner time.”

“Ok.” Stingy slid down off his chair and picked up his school bag. “Thank you for letting me study here, Robbie!”

“Um. Thank you for sorting all these parts for me?”

“Any time! I’ll see you later!”

 

* * *

 

As soon as Stingy had scrambled up the chute and out of the house Robbie said, “I think this is the first time you haven’t actually waited for me to shout at you before coming inside.”

“You don’t seem upset about it.” Sportacus grinned at him. “You know, Trixie asked me if we were going out when I was playing tennis with the kids.”

“Yes, she asked me too. Only it was in the middle of class and she startled me so badly that I nearly sewed two of my fingers together.” Robbie shuddered at the memory. “Apparently her mother wants to ask me out. No idea how _that_ happened.”

“I don’t know about that, it makes sense to me. You’re good with children, you’re very handsome, and Ms. Ts’ai likes tall men.”

Robbie blushed, and then scowled to cover it up. “I don’t know what Ms. Ts’ai likes, but I’m _fairly_ sure you’re the only person in this town who thinks I’m handsome. And I am _not_ good with children.”

A long, level stare from Sportacus, completely with knowing smile.

“What are you—look, I’ll admit that I don’t _hate_ them, but I refuse to say to anything else on the matter on the grounds that it would damage my status as a credentialed villain.”

“That’s fair.” Sportacus looped an arm around Robbie’s waist, grabbed his hand, and swung him into a slow, easy waltz. “And since _I_ am a credentialed hero, I won’t say anything about how sometimes it’s tiring to entertain children and I’d rather spend some time with another adult.”

“No, of course not, everyone would be horrified to learn that you aren’t perfect all the time. Why are we dancing?”

“I felt like dancing.” Sportacus’ eyes twinkled. “So. Are we going out?”

“I don’t _know,_ Sportafruit, I haven’t dated anyone since high school, I don’t remember how any of it works. I’m not actually _angry_ whenever I see you now, and we keep kissing, so I suppose that means something.”

“I think it does. I would like for us to be going out.” A slow turn, a gentle swing, and Robbie was leaning against the wall with Sportacus smiling up at him. “If you’d like to be, that is.”

“It seems like I get worse at being a villain every day,” Robbie said irritably, and kissed him.

 

* * *

 

A number of kisses later, Robbie said, “Trixie also asked me if I’d seen you naked yet. Rude little monster.”

Sportacus laughed. “And what did you say to her?”

“I threatened to hang her from the flagpole by her pants, what else would I say to a question like that?”

“Not that I’m _encouraging_ you to talk to Trixie about this sort of thing, but the answer to that question could change right now if you like.”

“What on earth do you— _oh._ Oh, yes, all right.”

“ _Do_ you actually have a bedroom?”

“Somewhere in the back. Although the bed might be covered with fabric remnants and circuit boards.”

“I think we can work with that.”

 

* * *

 

Several hours later, well after Sportacus had fallen asleep beside him in a bed that was no longer covered with miscellaneous junk, Robbie found himself staring at the ceiling and unbearably awake. Nothing about the situation made him at all unhappy, but it was so strange being _next_ to someone that he couldn’t quite get comfortable. Sportacus didn’t toss and turn, didn’t snore, nothing disturbing, but he was so…present. He took up more room than he ever should have, both physically and in Robbie’s head.

Finally, unable to fall asleep and unwilling to simply wallow in his insomnia without so much as a single piece of chocolate to keep him company, Robbie rolled out of bed, grabbed a pair of pajama pants and a robe, and headed for the bedroom door.

Sportacus stirred, slurring out a sleepy, “Everything all right?”

“Everything’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

“Ok, Robbie. G’night.”

There was half of a cake in the refrigerator, and plenty of sugar for his coffee, although Robbie conceded to the lateness of the hour and the presence of Sportacus in the other room and at least made decaf. He didn’t even bother to turn on more than one light, just sat in his chair in darkness, eating cake and drinking coffee and staring at nothing.

When he’d licked the last crumb of cake from his plate and his cup was as dry as could be he got up and wandered back to the storage closets. Those had their own overhead lights, so he didn’t have to light up the rest of the main room, and he dug through them until he spotted the pigtails, the purple dress, the mischievous smile. The eyes closed, as if in sleep.

She looked smaller than he remembered. Probably because Stingy and the others were older now, they’d aged and she hadn’t.

Oh, well. That was fixable. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have plenty of spare parts.

 

* * *

 

Eventually he did manage to go back to bed and get some sleep, sprawled out as much as he could with Sportacus wrapped around him like an octopus. When he woke up Sportacus was gone, which almost hurt until he found a note next to the bed.

> _I am very sorry that I had to leave before you woke up, but someone was in trouble. I promise I will see you later! –Sportacus_
> 
> _P.S. I saw Rottenella on your worktable! That is wonderful, I had wondered about what had happened to her. The kids will be thrilled._
> 
> _P.P.S. I will not tell the kids, you probably want her to be a surprise._

“Of course he ran off to do hero things,” Robbie groaned, staring at the note. “Just my luck.”

 

* * *

 

Time passed, as it had an irritating habit of doing. The end of the spring term at school was approaching, and Stingy began showing up to study even when Robbie hadn’t been teaching that day. Luckily he always called, he never just showed up, which gave Robbie time to hide his project. She was supposed to be a surprise, and anyway it would probably disturb Stingy to see her in pieces on a work table.

(The school no longer had another home economics teacher. _He_ was the home economics teacher. The mayor had actually given him a paycheck. It was bizarre.)

Sportacus also visited frequently, and spent the night often enough that it started to feel strange waking up without him.

The spring term ended, summer holidays began, and Robbie worked endlessly on joints and modeling and clockwork movements and circuit boards until finally, finally he had everything down perfectly.

“I’ll show them tomorrow,” he muttered drowsily as he was getting into bed. “Tomorrow seems like the right time.”

“Thass a wonderful idea, Robbie,” Sportacus said into his pillow, already mostly asleep. “The kids will love her.”

 

* * *

 

Noises.

Voices.

_Children._

Robbie rolled out of bed in alarm, nearly smacking his head on the nightstand in the process, and scrambled into his pajamas and robe before stalking out into the main room. “What’s going on here, what are you all doing in my—what have you _done_ to my _house?_ ”

“We’re cleaning,” Stingy said, from where he was carefully sorting and folding lengths of costuming material.

“We made you breakfast!” Pixel was at the stove, doing something with eggs that smelled _amazing_ while Stephanie made French toast.

“What? Why?”

“It’s Father’s Day!” Ziggy had a push broom, although it was rather too tall for him to manage easily. “We did stuff for our parents, and now we’re doing stuff for you!”

“It was Trixie’s idea,” Stephanie said, more to the pan of French toast than to him.

Trixie froze, red-faced, in the middle of washing the sink-full of dirty dishes. “Oh my god, shut _up,_ Pinky, you’re not supposed to _tell_ him that!”

“It was a nice idea, though, you deserve credit.” Stephanie looked very pleased. “Trixie was the one who said we should do something for you, and decided that we should make breakfast. Stingy suggested also cleaning.”

Robbie blinked, rubbing his eyes. “It’s what day? What?”

From behind him there was a shuffling noise and then Sportacus said, sleepily, “Kids, what are you doing here?”

Trixie stopped blushing immediately and bellowed, “Ah-HA! You _have_ seen Sportacus naked!”

“Trixie, you’re a wonderful girl and I care about you very much, but whether or not Robbie has seen me naked is none of your business.” Sportacus was wrapped up in a bedsheet, ears sticking up through truly extraordinary bedhead. “Is that French toast?”

Stephanie nodded. “With strawberries! We figured you’d be here too.”

“Well. Ah. Good thinking, that was very clever of you.” Sportacus pulled the sheet more tightly around himself. “I’m…going to go get dressed.”

Robbie scratched the back of his head, entirely baffled, and then said, “I have something to show all of you too. After breakfast, I suppose. I hadn’t realized it was Father’s Day.” He almost smiled. “That actually works out very nicely.”

 

* * *

 

Stephanie had overestimated and cooked an entire loaf of bread, so there was more than enough French toast for _everyone_ to have a slice. Sportacus, of course, ate as showily as he did everything else—for a few minutes the air was full of flying strawberries as the kids threw them into his mouth. Only one of them hit Robbie in the face. It was the largest one from the package, but that just meant that it belonged to him now. The kids cleared away the dirty dishes before Robbie had even realized that everyone was done, and then shooed him off so that he could go take a shower while they continued their entirely unnatural cleaning of his house.

He considered persuading Sportacus to join him, but then dismissed the idea with a shudder as he realized that Trixie, at least, would definitely try to listen in for blackmail material. Or even if she didn’t, the thought that she _might_ would entirely kill the mood.

Shower. Clothes. _Hair,_ because the realization that the children had seen him without his hair combed was vaguely horrifying. He slipped into the last storage closet while Sportacus was trying to mediate an argument about whether or not anyone else was allowed to interfere with Stingy’s complicated labeling system and closed the door most of the way behind him.

She looked like she was the right height, now. Maybe an inch shorter than Stephanie, but that was workable, that was within normal range, right? A longer face, slightly more like his, and a dress that went to her knees, leggings, sneakers. A regular child, not a music-box doll. She _did_ still have a key, but it was smaller, in the back of her neck where she could wind it herself if she ever needed to—which, once he’d wound it up properly the first time, she wouldn’t. That had been the hardest part, honestly, designing a self-winding movement of such great size.

He turned the key as tight as he could, and she opened her eyes and said, frowning, “Was I asleep for a really long time?”

She hadn’t been able to speak before.

She sounded like she’d fit in very well.

“Yes. Yes, you were.”

“Ok. Do I have a name?”

“Ella.”

“Ella.” She nodded, lips pursed thoughtfully, and then broke into a mischievous smile. “I like that name. Thanks, Dad.”

His eyes hurt, in what he suspected was a good way, confirming that he was teetering on the brink of losing every villain credential he had. “You’re welcome. Come on, everyone’s in the other room.”

She did still walk like a ballerina, lightly, as if at any moment she might leap into the air and the only thing keeping her from it was her small hand in his.

“Holy _shit,_ ” said Trixie as they stepped into the main room. “It’s _her!_ ”

Sportacus looked horrified. “Trixie! That is very rude.”

Ella lifted a hand and waved, still smiling, although now she did look nervous. “Hi. I’m Ella. It’s nice to meet you all again.”

Stingy stepped forward without any hesitation at all and held out a hand. “I’m Stingy. Your dad helps me with my science homework sometimes, and he’s been teaching me a lot about villainy.”

“I haven’t taught you _that_ much about villainy,” Robbie muttered under his breath as Stingy introduced her to the other children. “Got a solid basis in _theory,_ that’s all, we haven’t had _practical_ demonstrations for anything except hairstyling.”

Sportacus elbowed him gently. “Should I be worried about you doing practical villainy demonstrations? Given that I’m probably the person you’d be demonstrating on.”

“Oh, please. As if you can’t get out of most of my traps when I’m _not_ toning them down for educational purposes.”

“I suppose so, but I feel like we should work out some kind of plan here. Trade off, you know. You can do villain lessons one week, I can do hero ones the next.”

“That sounds fair. So I hate it, of course, but it could work.”

**Author's Note:**

> Share, enjoy, and please leave me a comment if you liked the story. <3


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